Operation Pink Herring

Adios, 2010

Annual New Year's quiz thing time!  I love reading other people's responses to this quiz every year, and here's to hoping that you do too. 2007, 2008, and 2009 versions, should you care to look.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Got a job that I did not hate. Started a (*cough*prize-winning) garden. Celebrated a year of marriage.  Started composting. Crafted a homemade Christmas wreath. Learned how to (sort of) knit.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I have fallen out of the habit of making real resolutions because I didn't really like the pressure I put on myself to achieve each and every one of them.  Since one of my resolutions several years running was to be less hard on myself, I'd say that means yes, yes I did keep my resolutions.

I did informally resolve to go to yoga more this year, meaning I wanted to clock at least 53 classes during 2010.  Going once a week has been my norm for several years and it's pretty easy to fit in one class on the weekends, but it gets tricky when we go out of town or have company and I then have to try to "make up" the missed class.  In 2009 I just barely squeaked out 52 classes, thanks to the month I took off for the wedding/honeymoon, the three weeks I was incapacitated after my knee surgery, and the ridiculous amount of traveling I did for work, my brother's wedding and related activities, my wedding shower/bachelorette party, friends' weddings... etc. Anyway, this year was much calmer on the travel and wedding side, and I clocked in 64 classes. I'm quite proud! I am signed up for a teacher training course that starts in February, and the course requires that I go to three classes per week (OMG) so next year's tally will be even higher.

I also kind of resolved to lose some of the extra weight I'd been carrying and get into better shape, and I'd say I did fairly well at that. The last time I weighed in at the gym I'd lost a total of about 6-7 lbs. Sadly, that weigh-in was almost a month ago and I haven't been to the gym since then. I have no good reason other than I just never feel like going, even though the damn gym is right in my office building now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, the newly pregnant friend mentioned in last year's survey gave birth to an adorable baby boy! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no, but I am a little afraid that Madison's name will be in this space next year. The old badger is not looking so good lately, and by that I mean he is looking even worse than usual. He's due for his annual vet visit this month which should be a rocking good time, as always.

5. What countries did you visit?This is the first year in a good long while that has not seen a stamp on the old passport.  We did go to Colorado for our anniversary in July, and we made a visit to Vermont in October... but other than that and several weekend/daytrips to New Jersey, we pretty much stayed put.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A new job for Joel, complete with a new location for us.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 2nd, my last day at my old job, and April 12, my start date at my new job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  Getting a new job; realizing that it is possible to not only not hate your job, but to actually like it.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I am getting really sick of listing my knee for this question. Guess who's back in physical therapy? THIS GIRL. My settlement had better be very large is all I'm saying.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I'm having trouble coming up with something for this question, possibly because we tried really, really hard to put as much money into savings as possible this year. I did buy this pursein August and I love it, like, a lot. The Groupon for 5 Bikram yoga classes for $20 was an excellent purchase, and we've been getting a lot of mileage out of our Netflix via Xbox live acount as well.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Same answer as last year: Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Appalled: People who cannot shut the hell up in the movies.  Depressed: Apostrophe abusers.

14. Where did most of your money go? The mortgage was far and away our biggest expense this year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Quitting my old job. I miss certain things, most notably my old coworkers, but on the whole I am so, so, SO happy to be free of that place.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Zero, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Help I'm Alive and Stadium Love by Metric.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? Thinner.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Hiking. Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Sitting around wondering what we should do on the weekends.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010?  Christmas kind of blended in with the rest of my week-long vacation this year, which is just fine with me. We stayed home, slept in, watched Scrooged (which I'd never seen before) and then I screwed up our Christmas Ham (which was actually a shoulder roast, but whatever) but it turned out delicious anyway. Christmas was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010? With Raylan Givens, yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Justified. Walking Dead is a close second.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  Every single one of the stupid hooligans that ruined a movie for me this year by yelling through the whole damn thing. 

24. What was the best book you read? I didn't have a standout best book this year, but here are the books I really enjoyed:

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Watership Down by Richard Adams (This was a re-read, and I think I loved it even more than I did in high school.)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, speaking of books, are you on Goodreads? Me too! Want to be my friend?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Metric. My god, they are good. Also, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

26. What did you want and get?  A new job!  

27. What did you want and not get?  A new job for Joel. And a new house.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  I always have to ask Joel for help with this question, so here are our combined favorites:

How to Train Your Dragon. You guys, this is the cutest movie ever.

Inception. Lived up to the hype!

True Grit. As discussed.

The Town. Even though this movie was totally ruined for me, once again, by loud punk-ass kids in the theater. At the 2pm showing. IS NOTHING SACRED. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I turned 29, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I did.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Having more than one closet and a dedicated parking space.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Jeans, Jcrew tshirt, hoodie and Privos.

32. What kept you sane?  Quitting my old job. This is getting a little repetitive, but I don't know how much longer I was going to survive in that basement dungeon. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Tie, between Timothy Olyphant and Georges St-Pierre. Did I mention that not only did I get totally into Ultimate Fighter this past season, but we went to watch the pay-per-view finale? At a sports bar? I never thought I would care about a sporting event -- let alone a fighting sport -- in my life. But between my love for polite, Canadian Georges and my burning hatred for Josh Koscheck, I was no-shit nervous about the outcome of that fight. (Georges won!)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ugh, I don't know. I hate politics. I am pretty psyched about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, though. I hope one day my kids will be unable to believe that such a stupid policy was ever real.

35. Who did you miss? My two best friends, who live way too far away.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Raylan Givens.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. If the other person pulls first, it's justified.

************************

2010 was a great year for us, and I hope it was for you all too. And if it wasn't, well, hooray! It's over! Here's to a happy and healthy 2011. Happy freaking new year, internet.

The best laid birthday plans

I am not a very good gift-giver. Well, I shouldn't exactly say that. I love buying things that I see if they remind me of someone. If I happen upon a book or a scarf or something that I know a certain person will love, I'm a great gift giver. But if I don't happen upon something perfect, well... I just draw a blank. The idea of Christmas shopping gives me an anxiety attack. How are you supposed to come up with a good idea for every person you know and love at the same time?  Throw in the fact that my brother's birthday is in January and my mom's is in February and that is a whole lot of winter gift ideas that never seem to come up with themselves. Much to my relief (and probably at my suggestion), my immediate family did away with getting each other Christmas gifts several years ago. And Joel and I usually just get each other birthday gifts and forgo Christmas gifts, since his birthday in December and mine is in January.  It's just too much. (For me.)

Even with just one gift to buy for Joel, I always end up stressing about what to get him for his birthday. I always want to get him something totally awesome but as his birthday draws nearer and I still have zero ideas, I start to think that I'd settle for getting him something pretty good. Maybe just something not terrible. I mean, something he only hates a little bit, that would be fine, right?

I started fretting about his gift early this year, as this is the big 3-0 for us. My thoughts on turning thirty are another whole topic (I was totally fine with it until about three weeks ago), but every time the topic would come up whoever I was talking to would remark on what a BIG BIRTHDAY it was. Better get him something REALLY SPECIAL, huh?  Wouldn't want the BIG SPECIAL BIRTHDAY to TOTALLY SUCK, would we?

So, there's that. And then there's the fact that Joel is probably the world's best gift-giver. He comes up with ideas all on his own with no hints or suggestions. He often buys me things that I never would have chosen for myself and they always end up becoming my favorite things. And most importantly of all, Joel is just a good guy and fantastic husband and I wanted to show him how much I appreciate him with a totally kick-ass birthday gift for once.

Eventually, thanks to RA, I hit upon the idea of tickets to a Ravens game. I was pretty pumped about this idea. I looked up the schedule and found there was a home game the day after his birthday. Perfect! My brother and my BFF coached me on where to get tickets and what seats were better than others and for the first time ever I had a present bought and shipped and sitting safely in my office with weeks to spare.

Then came the task of keeping it a secret. I have never, ever managed to keep a gift a surprise from Joel. He always guesses it, ALWAYS, even when I think there is no possible way he could ever figure out what I got him. I was really feeling quite smug about my idea and it was SO HARD not to gloat about what a great gift I'd gotten him. But I kept my mouth shut and I refused to answer any questions, give any hints, or even discuss the matter at all because I was afraid he'd figure it out.

On Saturday morning we woke up and while Joel was watching cartoons I wrapped up the tickets in a spare box. I made him open all the other cards that had come in the mail before opening his present. He was genuinely surprised (or he's so good at faking it that I can't tell the difference) and I patted myself on the back for being the best wife ever.

And then this afternoon, around 3pm, Joel started to feel sick. You'd better suck it up, I joked, because we have a goddamn football game to go to whether you feel like it or not! Maybe he was just hungry, he said, so I made us some toast. An hour later he seemed to feel better, and then he went upstairs to take a shower. When he hadn't come back down after what seemed like a long time, I went upstairs and found him in bed. Just taking a nap, he said. Wake me up at 6.

At 6:15 he said he felt OK, but not great. He didn't feel terrible, but it was the kind of uneasiness that could change in to full-on suckitude or just pass. The game kicked off at 8:20. I think you can probably see where this is going.

I made myself some dinner. Joel didn't want any. I looked on Craigslist and saw there were people selling tickets at the last minute and a few people were looking to buy tickets. I wondered if I should list ours and see if anyone was interested. But I didn't want to give them up in case he suddenly felt better.

At 7, we decided to go to the game. We bundled up appropriately and got on our bikes and rode over to the stadium. In hindsight, biking there was a terrible idea, but at the time it seemed l ike a better option than walking through the serious ghetto to the bus stop or riding our bikes to another less ghetto but far away bus stop. 

When we got there, Joel didn't think he could go in. We hemmed and hawed for few minutes over what to do and decided to go in after all, since we were already there.  But when we got to the stadium entrance there was a wall of people waiting outside to go through security.  Just looking at the line made me a little queasy and I realized that this was the stupidest idea ever. So we go in, and what? Joel feels like shit for three hours? While surrounded by drunk, screaming people? In the freezing cold?  No, we needed to go home. I sold the tickets to some dude and we turned around. Joel stopped to throw up before we even made it back to the bikes and had to stop several times on the way home.

So! We're back home. Joel is retching over the toilet upstairs. I guess we'll remember his 30th birthday for a long time, so at least there's that.

Strangely, I am not overly upset. I'm sad that he didn't get to enjoy his gift and I definitely wish that Joel wasn't upstairs barfing right now. But this sudden turn of events made me appreciate all we have more than it made me feel angry at the universe for ruining his present. Even though it may have been the best birthday idea I'll ever have, no big deal universe!  Assuming this is just a stomach bug (and I refuse to consider any other possibilities), we'll be back to normal by tomorrow or next week at the latest. I'll still have my husband and we'll still have our overall health. Of all the disasters that could come out of left field at any time, missing a football game isn't the worst thing that could have happened by a long shot.

But now MY stomach is starting to feel a little questionable, so I reserve the right to take that statement back.

 

With silver bells and cockle shells and a healthy dose of competive spirit

I was just joking about winning an imaginary gardening competition, but it turns out you actually CAN win at gardening, and guess what, internet?  You are looking at the recipient of the Most Improved Garden Plot prize, a very official and prestigious prize awarded via a confusingly worded mass email from the Head Gardener.  I'm waiting to hear if we get get a blue ribbon to hang on our plot marker or what, but I'm sure there will, at the very least, be a solid gold trophy and some serious bragging rights involved. 

I was afraid this entire hobby going to burn hot and fast and end in heartbreak when I failed to coax a single green leaf from our clumpy, neglected soil, but so far it's still fun. (Joel is not quite as delighted as I am, since the novelty of gardening wore off for him around the time he learned to walk.) My first crop of cucumbers failed and there are some sort of bugs nibbling away at my broccoli plants, but still!  Things are growing!  And I'm 90% positive that most of them are not weeds!

 

These, for instance, I'm positive are carrots.  Finally.  At first carrots sort of look like grass and you might be tempted to accidentally weed them. Just, you know, FYI.

The one trick that's been invaluable is starting seeds indoors.  The hippie magazine that gave me the idea and instructions was suggesting you should do it in order to start when it was still too cold to plant outside.  I, however, find the trick very useful because if it's growing in your pot inside, you can be pretty damn sure it's lettuce, and not a lettucy-looking weed impostor.  Everything looks pretty similar when it's a millimeter tall.

So I've been doing that, making little pots of out newspaper and keeping them in an old litterbox for easy transportation.  When it's going to be cold out overnight, I can bring my preshus baby plants inside for safekeeping.  And when they get big enough to go out in the soil, I can just plant the entire little pot.  Genius, these hippie magazines!  Joel bought me a subscription.

Of course, the magazine didn't give any instructions about how to deal with the separation anxiety.  I told these tiny cucumbers to call me if it got too cold and I'd come and pick them up, no questions asked.  And I reminded them that if that stupid rabbit comes sniffing around they're not to talk to him, under any circumstances.  No plant of mine is going to go hanging around with rabbits.  Do you think they're OK?  Maybe I should go and check on them.  

I find it fascinating to watch my plants grow and I'm repeatedly amazed that a tiny seed can become a plant and produce edible substances. Here's my broccoli at two weeks, four weeks and six weeks.  Aren't they the best little growers you've ever seen?  (Man, when I have a baby you had all better run for cover, because let me tell you: I honestly do think this little broccoli is the smartest, biggest, most handsome broccoli on the whole block.)

Yesterday was a big day in Gardenland, as it saw the first ever harvest in our award-winning garden.  That's our award-winning lettuce, which I used to make some award-winning salads and put on some award-winning burgers last night. 

And that one colander full of lettuce makes the entire week I spent pulling weeds and wishing I had a pet Clydesdale totally worth it. 

April 1:

May 23: 

Week One: Survived

I'm going to be using my new job as an excuse for everything that's not getting done in my life for quite a while folks, so you might as well get used to it.  Because I'm so very busy (not really), here.  Have some half-written posts I've been meaning to write. 

YOU KNOW YOUR LIFE IS AWESOME WHEN YOU HAVE PARASITE PREFERENCES

So, Henry The Cat has giardia. Again. I’ve told Henry again and again not to drink stream water while hiking, but he just never listens! (BA DA BING!)

That’s just a little parasite humor for you, folks. I’ll be here all week. Specifically, I’ll be here all week giving my cat antibiotics every twelve hours. I’m not complaining, because out of all the parasites this cat has had, giardia is the least gross. But I am a bit bewildered. Except for visits to the vet, during which he travels in the confines of a carrier, this cat has not been outside in over three years. Because we’ve had so many problems with parasites being passed around within my cat herd, I have them tested every year. For the past two years, Henry has been clean. Madison, who occasionally does escape outside to the alley and is in general a dirty, disgusting animal, is clean. So, technically it’s impossible for Henry to have re-contracted giardia. It’s the immaculate parasitic infection!

DEAR GOD PLEASE LET MY NEW ERGONOMIC KEYBOARD HURRY UP AND GET HERE

A few years ago I bought an awesome cyborg-looking wrist brace at CVS when my left wrist was bothering me and I decided I had carpal tunnel syndrome.  Shortly afterwards, I also ordered an ergonomic keyboard and my wrist stopped hurting and I forgot about it.  The ergonomic keyboard turned into one of those things that I just used because it was there, but I wasn’t sure if it really made a difference. 

Well, I left it behind at my old office and one thing has become abundantly clear: I NEED IT. One week using a regular keyboard and my wrist is in agony. You should hear it, crying all night. It hurts right now, typing this. Kind of a lot. I should probably stop typing.  The things I do for you, internet!

I don’t want to wear the brace to work because it makes doing anything with my left hand pretty difficult -- I guess that’s sort of the point, huh?  But I also just don’t want to look like a pussy. If I play my cards right I can probably keep them thinking that I'm not a total wuss until next winter, when I'll have to get another flu shot.  I'm trying to keep it very professional here.  I left my New Moon calendar at home and I haven't mentioned The Vampire Diaries even once.  But if the new ergonomic keyboard I ordered last week doesn’t get here soon, my wrist is going to have to call in sick.

DON'T CALL ME A BITCH

I am not a fan, in general, of fighting sports. I can get behind the idea of self-defense and martial arts, but people actually getting into a ring and beating the crap out of each other seems kind of… dumb. And mean. I don’t like it.

HOWEVER, I am starting to love this show Joel watches, Ultimate Fighter. Or as I like to call it, America’s Next Top Model for Dudes. It starts out with a theme song that is like a cross between an angry Linkin Park and the techno thump-thump intro from Jersey Shore. The lyrics, when you can make them out amid the screaming, are something like THIS IS THE ULTIMATE! WE ARE THE ULTIMATE! PUSHUP FACEPUNCH ULTIMATE!The show features two teams who compete against each other in fights and people get sent home and I’m actually kind of fuzzy on these details.  But several of the fighters somehow get nicknames, my personal favorite of which was last season’s Big Baby. I miss Big Baby. Treeslam (or whatever his name is) just doesn’t have quite the same hilarity. But the nicknames are awesome.

Big Baby really was a big baby, by the way, and that’s the dichotomy that I’m coming to truly love. On one episode last season two guys yelled the same lines at each other for what seemed like five minutes. One would yell “YOU’RE A BITCH” and then the other would yell back “DON’T CALL ME A BITCH” and they repeated that for so long that I was absolutely transfixed as to who would break the pattern first. "Bitch" is a term that’s thrown around quite a bit. My favorite line from this season so far was when Treepunch (I think) called someone else -- you guessed it! -- "bitch" during a practice fight, and the other guy replied “You can’t call me a bitch! We’re on the same team!”

Basically, these uber-tough guys all live in a house together and call each other bitches and then at the end of each episode they fight. If you have a significant other who’s into this kind of thing, I recommend giving it a try. Just close your eyes when they start bleeding at the end.

MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY

I meant to write about my foray into the wide world of gardening weeks ago, but it’s just as well that I didn’t because between then and now, not much has happened. It turns out that gardening requires quite a bit of waiting, which in turn requires patience. Needless to say, I am having some difficulty.

The impetus for hobby #472 came when, after a year on the waiting list, we got a call informing us that we were getting a community garden plot in the park a few blocks from our house. I spent a large chunk of my week off between jobs beating that poor neglected plot into submission, and we now have quite a variety of seeds in the dirt. It's exciting.  Yes, it is.

I am in love with the whole idea of growing actual food from teeny tiny seeds, but I can’t help feeling like I’m destined for heartbreak. I am a long-time killer of houseplants and I have no experience with actual outside gardening. I can’t leave the potted herbs I planted on our back patio alone. I check on them every day and then feel crushed when STILL nothing but the basil has sprouted. What do they need? More water? Fertilizer? A nightly lullaby? And then I’m tempted to try all three, and then everything dies.  It's probably a good thing that the garden plot is a ten-minute walk from the house.

I’ve attended a couple of free classes at a local nursery, though, and my hopes are still high. It looks like I’ve killed the cucumbers by misreading the date it was safe to plant (April 20, not March 20, oops) and we might need to re-plant the carrots as well (not good in clumpy soil, double oops), but when we checked this weekend it looked like the broccoli and lettuce were both sprouting! Either that, or there are weeds growing in an awfully straight line.

Because I like to do things 110%, we are also now composting at our house, much to Joel’s chagrin. His exact words, I believe, were “this is an ill-conceived plan.” He is, in all likelihood, correct. But that’s not going to stop me from dumping all our organic waste into a Rubbermaid bin and scouring the state for a single place that will sell me red wigglers, which are apparently the kind of worms you need for composting.  I kidnapped a bucketful of reddish-looking worms from the garden plot and hopefully they are eating their way through all my coffee grinds and broccoli stems.  Either that, or they're all dead.  I can't bring myself to check.  

ADVICE, PLEASE

Finally, I need your input on one of my desk photos.  In an effort to settle into my new workspace I brought in a few picture frames and filled them with some extra prints I had lying around the house. I used one of my favorite wedding pictures, but I’m afraid it’s a little too… passionate for the workplace.

Tell me the truth, internet. Is it too racy? I’m planning to do a print order soon and I could easily replace it… but I kind of like it. Help me. I've expended far too much energy not talking about the new Hilary Duff movie that was on ABCFamily last night (DID YOU GUYS WATCH?) to be The New Girl With The Makeout Picture.

THE WALL: DONE

They say that an author never really finishes a novel, they just reach a point where they give up.

Well, that's the point I'm at with The Wall.  I give up.  It's done.

There is still quite a bit that I could do, if I had unlimited time and patience.  I could scrub the grout better, I could chisel away at the parts that we got sloppy on while we were applying the grout.  I could use the industrial sized bottle of grout sealant and then gently buff each tile to a shiny finish.

I could.  But I'm not going to. 

I am afraid that if I let my compulsive perfectionist tendencies take over, I'll end up hating this project.  I don't want to hate it.  It's certainly become a labor of love, but I am really happy with how it turned out.  It's not perfect, but hey.  We're not going to live in this house forever.  There's no point in killing myself (any more than I already have) over a project that I'm eventually going to have to leave behind.

It is good enough.   

Right?

I think that I had the foresight to take a "before" picture, but at that time we didn't have a digital camera (that gives you an idea of how long I've been working on this thing), so this picture will have to do.  It's actually the back side of our wall, which faces our neighbor's house.   I felt very sneaky tip-toeing around in her side of the alley snapping pictures, but the internet needs documentation. 

BEFORE:

Nice view, huh?  Want the number of my real estate agent so you can buy a rowhouse in Baltimore?

And, AFTER:

 

Unfortunately our alley is still the same size (that would be NARROW, just like our house, in case you were wondering), so it's impossible to get a decent picture of the whole thing. 

Don't worry!  That just means that instead of one picture, you get lots.

Here's a shot from the other side:

And a few close ups from the middle section:

I am happy with this section because you can actually tell what I was trying to make (it's a school of red fish swimming through some seaweed, just in case I'm the only one who can, in fact, tell.)

Um, this section got a little... jumbled.  But I still like it because it is colorful.  It was supposed to be a coral formation (yellow, pink and blue) with a crab peeking out and another school of fish (made from a plate featuring chili peppers) swimming by.

This also came out a bit jumbled for my liking, but hey: at least those glass marbles from Ikea went to good use.  Even if they do look like fish eggs (that was NOT my intention).

And remembering the whole point of this project, this is now the view from Kitchen Window #1 (left):

and this is the view from Kitchen Window #2 (right):

Both are arguably better than staring at a cinderblock wall, so I'm considering this Mission: Accomplished.

All in all, it took:

• Approximately 150 hours over three years (not including time spent scouring Goodwill, garage sales and The Loading Dock for supplies)
• About $500 for supplies
• At least 5 full boxes of tiles and more than 50 plates, bowls and mugs
• Three mirrors
• One 50-lb bag of mortar
• Three 25-lb bags of sanded grout
• One hammer (for breaking tiles)
• One pair of safety goggles
• A Sam's Club box of scouring pads (for scrubbing grout)
• A crapload of patience

I will be forever grateful that places like Goodwill and The Loading Dock exist, because without low-cost places to obtain dishes and tiles there is no way I could have afforded to do this.  Dude, do you know how much tiles cost?  It's ridiculous. 

I am also very, very grateful that I can officially say that this is DONE.  I did really, honestly enjoy working on it, but towards the end (meaning, this entire year) it became a burden, always in the back of my mind.  Every weekend I felt guilty for not working on it (or not working on it enough).  Whenever I looked into our alley and saw the boxes of broken and yet-to-be broken tiles stacked high I'd have a mini-panic attack about how this was never going to be finished.   I was sure that I'd only complete it minutes before we moved out of our house for greener pastures, and I wouldn't even have a minute to enjoy it in all its completed glory.

And now I can do just that.  Amen.

And if anyone needs an assortment of broken tiles and plates, organized by color (of course)... I've got a basement full.  I couldn't bring myself to throw the leftovers away.  What if I decide to cement slab on the second floor deck?  Or the front steps?  Or the entire side of the house?  I might need those tiles.

Then again, if I do decide to do any of those things, please sit  me down and make me read this post.